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Science & Mathematics

The Museum's collections hold thousands of objects related to chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, and other sciences. Instruments range from early American telescopes to lasers. Rare glassware and other artifacts from the laboratory of Joseph Priestley, the discoverer of oxygen, are among the scientific treasures here. A Gilbert chemistry set of about 1937 and other objects testify to the pleasures of amateur science. Artifacts also help illuminate the social and political history of biology and the roles of women and minorities in science.

The mathematics collection holds artifacts from slide rules and flash cards to code-breaking equipment. More than 1,000 models demonstrate some of the problems and principles of mathematics, and 80 abstract paintings by illustrator and cartoonist Crockett Johnson show his visual interpretations of mathematical theorems.

This U.S. Patent Office model has five continuous metal bands that move in slots across a wooden frame. Flat pieces of brass cover the top of the frame on the right and the left, keeping the bands in their slots. The bands are made up of small flat squares of metal, with nine squares silver-colored and the tenth one brass. Each square has a hole at the center for a stylus. Strips of paper attached between the bands have the numbers from 1 to 9. Moving a band to the right turns a wheel clockwise. The edge of this wheel, which is covered around the edge with a paper marked with the digits from 0 to 9, is visible through a window in the right piece of brass. The number shown increases as the wheel turns. A lever on the left side disengages the fourth and fifth columns. According to the patent description, there is a carry mechanism activated when a wheel passes 9.

The machine is marked on the left top: Computing (/) Machine (/) A.W. Davies.

Cleveland city directories list an Alexander W. Davies who worked off and on as a clerk, car agent, and accountant for several railroads between 1863 and 1900. It is probable that he took out two patents in 1891 for inventions relating to recording the mileage traveled by railroad cars. Railroad companies would soon become major users of business machines, including IBM tabulating equipment.

This patent model for an adder has a brass box with a rotating disc inset in the top. There are 100 small holes around the rim of the disc. Outside the disc, on the top of the box, is a circular ring numbered from 01 to 99, with a gap at 00. Outside of this are three rings of holes, with 100 holes in each ring. These holes are to be used to hold markers indicating digits carried when the disc makes full rotations. On the side of the box is a rotating multiplication table.

A. Mendenhall, who patented this adder, was undoubtedly Amos Mendenhall, who was born in Ohio in 1828 and raised in east central Indiana. His father, Hiram Mendenhall (1801-1852) was a miller and farmer by trade and a Quaker and abolitionist in belief. In 1844, Hiram Mendenhall, as a representative of the Randolph County Anti-Slavery Society, presented a petition to presidential candidate Henry Clay, urging him to free his slaves. Clay refused and publicly rebuked Mendenhall. Hiram Mendenhall went on to pool his property with others to form the Unionport commune of the Society for Universal Inquiry and Reform. This effort soon collapsed and Hiram and Amos went to California to recoup the family fortunes in the gold fields. They failed to do this, and Hiram died of cholera on shipboard en route home. Amos, his mother, and his siblings continued to live in Unionport, where Amos farmed and tinkered. In the 1880 census, his occupation is given as “manufacture.”

The “practical calculator” was Mendenhall's first patented invention. He took out patents for gold mining devices (#360713, granted April 5, 1887, and # 541912, granted June 11, 1895), a tricycle (#453151, granted May 26, 1891), and a bicycle (#740156, granted September 29, 1903).

This patent model for an adder has three concentric, linked discs that revolve on a central pivot. The bottom disc is numbered from 1 to 99 clockwise around its toothed edge, to represent hundreds and thousands. Above it is a smaller disc, also with teeth around the edge, numbered from 00 to 99 clockwise to represent units and tens. A window in the third, top, largest disc shows the result on the dials below. The largest disc is numbered from 1 to 100 around the edge. Atop this disc is a rotating arm. Moving the arm counterclockwise advances the inner disc proportionally, allowing one to enter numbers up to 99.

A lever extends from the side of the disc and bends over the top. If the arm rotates around a full 100 units, it pushes this lever, causing a carry. The lever also may be used to zero the hundreds and thousands digits. See U.S. patent 69,647 for “Improvement in Tallying Instrument.” According to the patent, the invention “relates to a new and improved method of registering or tallying the quantity of lumber measured, or keeping account of sums of money paid out or received . . .”

There was a George Farmer (born about 1831 in England, died 1880 in Saginaw, Michigan) who worked as a miller and shingle maker in Illinois and in Michigan. He is listed in the 1860 U.S. Census as living in Elmira in Stark County, Illinois, working as a miller. That same year he received a patent on August 21for an improvement in harvesters (#29685). By 1870, he was living in Saginaw, Michigan, still working as a miller. In the 1880 Census he is listed as a shingle manufacturer. He and his son, Albion, ran a shingle-making business in Saginaw under the name of George Farmer & Son. It is listed in the 1878 city directory for the town. The George Farmer who received the patent for this adder was a resident of Flint, which is near Saginaw.

The base of this U.S. Patent Office model for a circular stylus-operated adding machine is a wooden paddle. The outer edge of the paddle is divided clockwise into 100 parts, which are marked in ink. Five concentric metal discs are atop the paddle, each one slightly smaller than the one below. The discs are held together at the middle by a screw. The first disc above the paddle has 100 holes around the edge and rotates. The second disc is fixed, with the numbers from 1 to 97 marked in pen counterclockwise around the edge (a few higher digits are hidden). The third disc is toothed, and has the numbers from 1 to 100 around its edge, inside the teeth. The fourth disc covers the third one, with one notch that reveals a number on the toothed disc. The fourth disc also has 100 holes around its edge. Just inside these holes is the fifth, top disc. It also is divided into 100 parts around the edge. These are marked in pen from 1 to 50 going counterclockwise on the right side, and from 1 to 47 going clockwise around the left side (a few divisions are unmarked). The first disc is intended to represent sums of numbers up to 100 (cents), and to carry a term to advance the third disc, which represents hundreds (dollars). The smallest disc can be used as a guide in adding or subtracting hundreds.

The machine is stamped on the front: T.T.STRODE. It has a tag nailed to the back that reads: T.T. Strode (/) Calculating Machine (/) Recd May 4 1867. Thomas T. Strode of Chester County in eastern Pennsylvania took out several patents in the second half of the nineteenth century for inventions ranging from a machine to boring holes in posts to a grain winnower and weigher to calendar-clocks. He apparently worked as a farmer and a merchant.

This patent model for an adder has as its base two concentric brass discs, one rotating inside the other. The rim of the outer disc has the numbers from 0 to 99 engraved around its edge. The inner disc has 100 small holes marked evenly around its edge. These also are numbered 0 to 99. Two steel arms pivot at the center of the disc. The longer arm has a pin on the underside that fits into the holes and a small knob on the upper side so that it can be rotated. A protruding pin set at 0 in the outer circle stops the motion of this arm. It is used to add numbers up to 99.

When the total on the inner disc exceeds 99, the the smaller arm advances one digit, indicating hundreds. The number of hundreds entered appears in a window in a small disc that is on top of three relatively small gears concentric to the large discs. Hundreds apparently cannot be entered directly. The adder has a handle that projects from the center of the back.

Census records list two men who may have been Alonzo Johnson, the inventor of this device. Both were machinists. One Alonzo Johnson (no middle initial) was born 12 February 1828 in Bangor, Maine, the son of Louisa Underwood and Dolliver Johnson. Alonzo's father was a railroad engineer, then a superintendent of locomotive power on the Fitchburg Railroad and then associated with the Illinois Central. This Alonzo Johnson married in about 1850, and lived in Springfield with his wife Sarah and their children from at least 1870 through 1900. Census records also list an Alonzo H. Johnson, born about 1828 in Connecticut, who was living with his wife Hannah in Springfield in 1870, 1880 and 1900.

Alonzo Johnson of Springfield took out eight patents, the first two for calculating devices. These were #73732 (granted January 28, 1868, with James A. Loomis as co-inventor and Charles Gifford of Gardiner, Maine, as assignee), and #85229 (taken out December 22,1868, and assigned to Sylvester Bissell and Andrew West of Hartford). Later patents were for nut-locks (#188055, granted March 6, 1871), slitting lock nuts (#231492, granted August 24, 1880), a car-brake (#235152, granted December 7, 1880), a card-cutter (#241372, granted May 10, 1881), a sash-fastener (#255144, granted April 11, 1882), and a gumming device for envelope machines (#397798, granted February 12, 1889).

This shield-shaped brass instrument has an inset rotating disc with 100 holes numbered clockwise around the edge. The outside of the disc also has 100 numbered divisions. A piece of the outer shield curves in across the disc to the center and serves as a stop in addition. Above the disc are three smaller wheels on top of the shield. The wheel on the right is numbered counterclockwise from 0 to 9 and labeled: 100 1000. The wheel in the middle is numbered clockwise from 0 to 9 and labeled: 1000 10,000. The leftmost wheel is numbered clockwise by tens from 0 to ten and labeled: 10,000 100,000. There is a pointer for each wheel. Rotating the large disc through 100 causes the “100 1000” disc to rotate one unit (as presently arranged, the reading on the wheel decreases by one unit). The small wheels also may be rotated separately, although the carry to higher places does not seem to work properly.

Reference:

Gustavus Linderoos, “Improvement in Adding-Machines,” U.S. Patent No. 140,146, June 24, 1873. At this time, Linderoos was a resident of Point Arena, California.

This is the U.S. Patent Office model for a printing pinwheel calculating machine patented by Frank S. Baldwin of St. Louis, Mo., in 1875. The machine has a brass base, two open brass pieces on each side that form a frame, and a brass, steel, and wooden mechanism. A cylindrical drum mounted horizontally on the frame is 11.5 cm. (4-1/2”) in diameter and 5 cm. (2”) in height.

Both ends of this drum are perforated with six round holes. The drum slides along the shaft into a series of position and may be fixed in place by a small lever. Along the surface of the drum are three slots in which levers slide. The levers may be set at any digit from 0 to 9. Moving a lever from 0 to a given number moves a steel arc that pushes the corresponding number of pins above the surface of the cylinder opposite the lever. Rotating the large cylinder rotates a series of intermediate wheels in proportion to the number of raised pins.

These wheels are linked to a set of seven cogwheels, each having ten teeth. On the outer edge of each tooth is a number in type, the numbers ranging from 0 to 9. These cogwheels are linked to a second set of three larger cogwheels that also have digits in type. These wheels may be intended to indicate the multiplier. The front of the two sets of type-wheels has a brass cover that contains a manually operated printing mechanism. The machine has no paper or ribbon

The machine is marked on the large cylinder next to the slots for the three levers: F.P. Baldwin (/) St. Louis, Mo.

Baldwin applied for his patent September 8, 1873. A few examples were manufactured and sold by the Reliance Machine Works of Philadelphia.

This undated 16-page booklet was received with MA*326237. It is titled, The 'Cooper' 100-inch Slide Rule (Patented). Designed for Use in Calculations Involving Multiplication, Division, Proportion, Percentages, Powers, Roots, Logarithms, etc. etc. The description of the calculator claims it reads to four decimal places. Instructions for currency conversion are also provided. Partial tables of decimal equivalents appear as an advertisement for The Instanter Decimal Tables, published by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. of London.

The Japanese Empire Department of Education displayed this circular brass protractor at the 1876 World's Fair, the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. A notch for accessing the origin point is cut into the fourth quadrant of the crossbars spanning the diameter of the protractor. The protractor is marked every thirty degrees in the clockwise direction with Japanese characters for the twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac: mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog, and boar. The top of each symbol faces the center of the protractor.

The government of Japan aimed to demonstrate its nation's modernity and progress. In fact, Japan's Department of Education had just been established in 1870 to replace an Educational Board and to assume a more active role in the management of primary, middle, and secondary schools. John Eaton, the U.S. Commissioner of Education, arranged for the transfer of the entire exhibit in which this protractor appeared to the Bureau of Education (then part of the Department of the Interior) for a planned museum. The museum closed in 1906 due to high maintenance costs, and much of the collection was transferred to the Smithsonian in 1910. No information about the maker of this protractor is known.

This brass circular protractor is divided by single degrees and marked every thirty degrees in the clockwise direction with Japanese characters facing outwards and representing the Chinese zodiac: mouse, cow, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, chicken, dog, and boar. Four arms extend toward the center of the protractor and meet around an open circle 3cm in diameter. The circle is open, except for a protrusion containing a pinhole at the origin point.

The Japanese Empire Department of Education assembled an extensive exhibit of books, reports, examinations, maps, photographs, paintings, classroom equipment, medical apparatus, and drawing instruments for the 1876 World's Fair, the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Five types of protractors were included in the display, two of which survive in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.